One of the best ways of expressing the mind is scratching the pen on paper. In fact, writing is a powerful tool of thought. Although we write using our hand but writing is an action of our mind. Aesthetic joy and happiness derived through writing are simply undeniable. The continent of Africa, in spite of its unbelievable wilderness and primitive lifestyle, was accustomed to indigenous literature since the onset of history. However, this existed in oral form and not in writing. Oral literature existed in various forms including myths, dirges, epics, proverbs and of course, poems.
The fraternity of African writers first originated after the Celtic and the Germanic languages arrived across the coastline of Ethiopia. According to most scholars, because of the high rate of illiteracy prevailing across the continent, written format of literature could not flourish prior to the arrival of the European languages. Then again, the second phase of the continent’s literary pursuit started with the waves of Islamic conquest reaching its shores. During this phase onwards, literature across the continent was severely dominated by Arabian languages and literature.
However, modern African literature came into existence only in the recent times and owes its debt mostly to colonialism and missionary activities that were carried out in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. That is why the genre of modern literature in the continent is mostly based on foreign languages including the English, the French and the German. During the twentieth century, African nations started becoming free from the shackles of colonial rule. It was again time for yet another phase change for literature in the African continent. It was from this time onwards, the fraternity of African poets, authors and writers started gaining global prominence. The first Noble Prize in Literature came to Africa in 1986. As African literature started gaining global exposure, its reader base surged at an exponential pace. The fraternity of creative poets and authors from the continent writes on various sociopolitical issues that encompass the nitty-gritty details of daily life of the commonest of the commoners.
Modern African Literature 